New plaza could ease traffic toll

Sawgrass Expressway to add lanes in Deerfield conversion

They slam on the brakes, step on the gas, swerve into the next lane. Or maybe a combination of all three.

Driving up to the Sawgrass Expressway's Deerfield toll plaza has the same adrenaline rush as pulling into a pit stop at a NASCAR race.

Commuters must not only choose between SunPass or cash lanes but also deal with traffic going to and from Florida's Turnpike. The result is a daily bottleneck.

"Many people slow down to go through the SunPass lane, others maintain full speed. Many are confused and weave from one lane to the other," said Michael Dart, a SunPass user from Coral Springs.

"Nobody knows what a solid white line is."

The confusion should fade in two years when a new, $39 million high-tech plaza opens to make paying tolls and merging less aggravating.

Construction began last week to build new high-speed SunPass lanes without any barriers or gates, a concept called "open road tolling." The Sunrise plaza at the Sawgrass' southern end already is undergoing a similar transformation.

Ten years ago, dropping coins in baskets was the only toll-paying option available to motorists. Today, nearly eight out of 10 tolls on the Sawgrass at rush hour are paid with SunPass.

Five SunPass express lanes, three westbound and two eastbound, will be built in the median at Deerfield, and a new overhead structure, which will include SunPass sensors, west of the existing toll plaza will let SunPass users pay tolls at full highway speeds. The lanes will be accessible only to "through" traffic on the Sawgrass or Southwest 10th Street and to northbound turnpike drivers headed west on the Sawgrass.

All drivers who pay cash will use the existing SunPass lanes and toll booths at the side of the road, then merge back into traffic or to the turnpike entrance ramps.

The existing SunPass toll booths in the center of the plaza will be demolished.

"We're going to punch a hole through the middle," said turnpike spokeswoman Sonyha Rodriguez-Miller.

Southbound turnpike drivers headed west on the Sawgrass and eastbound Sawgrass drivers headed to the turnpike won't be able to use the new high-speed lanes because the turnpike ramps are too close to the toll plaza. Instead, those drivers will merge and exit on a new system of lanes parallel to the Sawgrass so they won't interfere with the main flow of traffic.

A little fewer than half the vehicles on the Sawgrass at the Deerfield toll plaza originate from or exit to the turnpike.

Still, officials say the new plaza will benefit all drivers by improving safety and eliminating areas where they now crisscross lanes. In the meantime, the turnpike is studying new technology that could give all drivers the benefit of the high-speed tolling lanes someday, even if they don't have SunPass. The technology involves the use of video cameras that can capture license plates and send a bill for the tolls to the vehicle's owner.

"We don't want people to wait another five to 10 years for that new technology to come along. We look at what we're doing now as an intermediate step," Rodriguez-Miller said.

Dart said he'll feel safer driving through the plaza when the improvements are finished. "Completion of that toll plaza will greatly reduce the risk of accidents," he added.

Officials last reconfigured the plaza's SunPass lanes in 2003.

The current SunPass lanes can process up to 1,600 vehicles per hour, compared with 400 per hour at a staffed toll booth. An open road tolling lane can handle up to 2,200 vehicles per hour.

About 82 percent of the Sawgrass' drivers use SunPass in the morning rush hour at the Deerfield plaza, up from 78 percent a year ago. In the afternoons, about 80 percent pay tolls electronically, compared with 71 percent last year. That's well ahead of officials' goal to have 75 percent of all tolls on turnpike roads paid with SunPass by December 2008.

Turnpike officials say all toll lanes will remain open during most of the construction at the plaza. The Deerfield conversion is scheduled to be finished in the summer of 2009.

Michael Turnbell can be reached at mturnbell@sun-sentinel.com, 954-356-4155 or 561-243-6550.